Chinese Medicine as a yoga, the Neijing as a sutra

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(disclaimer - this message may not make sense if you are not familiar

with Spiral Dynamics and general integral theory. This is a good

place to start...

http://www.integralnaked.org/faq-pdf.aspx?id=6

....or Lonny Jarrett's second book is useful too).

 

Hi everyone,

 

My girlfriend has been lucky enough to find herself apprenticed to an

old style CM herbalist, who himself learnt directly from a couple of

different lineage holders of CM pre-1950. He is teaching her from the

ground up, ie. reading classical texts (she reads Chinese), guiding

her through different meanings and interpretations, and how she must

ultimately choose her own according to her own level of development

and awareness (the interpretation changes as she changes, thus the

ultimate aim of the teaching relationship is for the art to eventually

live within her).

 

It just occurs to me that this might help explain what an " Inner

Tradition " of CM means, whilst not invalidating the usefulness of

other approaches. As I think Lonny Jarrett tries to encourage, we all

must come to our own unique synthesis in practice, which is both what

makes CM practice so challenging and so wonderful for our own growth.

Maybe we can treat reading the Neijing like a mystic would read a

religious texts?

 

In Judaism for example we have Biblical teachings for Blue/mythic

consciousness, Talmudic methods for Orange/rational and

Green/aperspectival, and Kabbalic approaches for Second Tier/integral.

All useful intepretations and true within that stage, but never

complete, and that incompleteness drives forever deeper and deeper

understanding of the text/world/self.

 

So for the Nei Jing, we have mythic literalist readings that

dogmatically believe everything written as true as is, Kendall's " Dao

of " (and maybe Todd's?) as an example of a

rationalist intepretation, modern TCM in the West as fitting somewhere

within the postmodern aperspectival approach, and the principle of

using the text as not just a mediator and authority for knowledge of

the world, but rather as a facilitor of deeper independant and direct

readings/intepretations of reality, in the inner/integral traditions.

 

Maybe that is why memorisation of texts has been so important in some

CM schools historically, much like it is part of many Buddhist

traditions to chant the sutras constantly.

 

Does that make any sense?

 

Here is a summary of what info I have been able to glean from my

girlfriend about how her master sees what CM is all about (in his

interpretation of the classics):

 

1) Mingmen or " Life/Destiny Gate " is just that - it is a Gate to the

Source.

 

2) The Source is the undifferentiated Taiji/Tao that is pure

emptiness, the creative potential for everything.

 

3) The Taiji is the One, Yin/Yang is the Two, err..... can't remember

the rest. At any rate, Daoist metaphysics is an attempt to describe

how emptiness spills out into manifestation.

 

4) In terms of CM, there are some types of primary Yin/Yang

differentiation for the body/mind that are often confused:

a) Yin as the physical body, Yang as the functioning of that body

b) Yin as all thoughts, Yang as the processing and movement of those

thoughts

c) Yin as all of a) (all measureable in the physical realm), and Yang

as all of b) (all measurable only by interpretation)

 

5) a) and b) work within similar systems and logics, eg. a) has the

Zang Fu organ realtionships, b) has the 5 Spirits. They are related

to each other, but also very much separate and irreducible to each

other. So even if I could strengthen your Hun by mending the Liver,

and having an unhealthy Liver is not good for my Hun, I may find my

Hun is very strong and my Liver is not at any given point in time.

 

For example, one could affect the Zang Fu system with herbs

and acupuncture in a) to make a change in the balance of Spirit

energies in b), or one could guide a patient's awareness to make

adjustments in the Spirits in b) that go on then to make physical

changes in the organs in a). So herbs and acupuncture do not directly

affect the Spirits (though they can be affected through that system),

and meditation/pointing out/therapy does not directly affect the

Organs (though treating that realm can have important physical

consequences). The bridge is the emotions.

 

6) Mingmen, or the gate through which the Source expresses itself in

the manifest realm is in the Kidneys on the physical side. On the

subjective side, the Mingmen is in the Pericardium.

 

I realise all this stuff is a bit " woo-woo " from the normal discourse

here, but any feedback would be appreicated.

 

Cheers

Lionel